In four other areas surrounding Trion in the Perdido Fold Belt, areas 1 and 4 went to China's Cnooc (NYSE:CEO), area 2 to a consortium of Total (NYSE:TOT) and ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM), and area 3 to a group comprising Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Pemex and Inpex.

In the Salina basin to the south, areas 1 and 3 went to a consortium of Statoil (NYSE:STO), BP and Total (TOT), area 4 to Sierra Offshore and a Mexican entity, and Area 5 to a group led by Murphy Oil (NYSE:MUR) and Sierra Offshore; areas 2 and 6 received no bids.

CEO, STO and Pemex each submitted individual bids that did not win an award, while consortia that unsuccessfully submitted bids were Eni (NYSE:E) and Lukoil (OTC:LUKOF, OTCPK:LUKOY), and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) and Atlantic Rim Mexico.

Chevron (NYSE:CVX) is teaming up with Mexico's Pemex and Japan’s Inpex to bid for the right to explore for oil and natural gas in Mexico's first-ever deepwater auction, set for Dec. 5.

The auction marks the first time Mexico's state-owned operator will partner with private companies to develop crude in the Gulf of Mexico, and is one of seven groups and eight individual bidders to qualify for participation.

Total (NYSE:TOT) is joining forces with BP and Statoil (NYSE:STO) in one group, and with ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) in another, while Eni (NYSE:E) and Lukoil (OTCPK:LUKOY, OTC:LUKOF) also joined up, and Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) formed another group; other companies involved include BHP, CEO, MUR.

The Mexican regulator has not specified which bids are for the Trion field joint venture with Pemex or for the other areas.

ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) has told the government of Guyana that it plans to fast-track development of the Liza discovery on the 6.6M-acre Stabroek block, along with partners (NYSE:HES) and Nexen (NYSE:CEO).

XOM says its Liza-1 well encountered more than 295 ft. of high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone, and the Liza-2 well encountered more than 190 ft. of oil-bearing sandstone.

Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) unveils plans to install four large floating production, storage and offloading vessels at the giant Libra offshore oil area starting in 2020, with extended well testing beginning in the middle of next year.

PBR expects production Libra will be 120K-180K bbl/day of oil, with all the natural gas not used to power the production system likely to be re-injected as the most economic solution.

But an official at France's Total (NYSE:TOT), a partner with a 20% stake in the project, says the company remains concerned over how much oil the deepwater project will yield given the technical challenges of the reservoir, which rests under miles of salt and ocean.

Operator PBR owns 40% of the area, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) owns 20% along with TOT, and China's Cnooc (NYSE:CEO) and China National Petroleum (NYSE:PTR) each own 10%.

Cnooc (CEO-4.7%) has sold off its majority stake in Canadian oil and gas venture Northern Cross, according to an executive in the Canadian company, possibly a sign the state-controlled Chinese company is retrenching after spending billions to establish a foothold in North America.

Privately held Northern Cross hopes to drill test wells in Yukon Territory, which currently produces no oil and natural gas; the area may contain trillions of cubic feet of gas and millions of barrels of oil trapped under the permafrost in one of the last unexplored frontiers for energy development.

Separately, Cnooc says it posted a 15% decline in Q3 revenue from oil and natural gas to 30.75B yuan ($4.5B), which analysts say was expected as oil prices have not rebounded to a level that would spark an increase in production.

ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and Oil Search (OTCPK:OISHY), partners in a gas-export venture in Papua New Guinea, each agree to acquire 40% interests in two exploration licenses from a company controlled by China’s Cnooc (NYSE:CEO) for an undisclosed sum.

The licenses cover nearly 25K combined sq. km in water depths of as much as 2,500 meters.

Oil Search says a comprehensive study of exploration opportunities in 2015 and 2016 had identified the offshore Gulf of Papua as a area of significant natural gas potential.

Commercial oil reserves were discovered in Uganda a decade ago, but production has been delayed amid disputes over taxation and field development strategy.

Uganda's energy minister says the companies, together with China's Cnooc (NYSE:CEO), are expected to invest $8B to develop the oil fields, which will involve drilling more than 500 oil wells and producing 200K-230K bbl/day of crude; the country's total oil assets are believed to contain ~6.5B barrels of crude.

Sinopec (SNP-0.1%) says its H1 net profit fell 22% to 19.9B yuan ($2.98B) from 25.4B yuan in the year-ago quarter, but that's more than double its net income in H2 of last year when it posted its weakest earnings since 2002.

SNP outshined domestic state-run rivals PetroChina (PTR-0.3%) and Cnooc (CEO-0.3%) in H1 as its refining business helped it weather the drops in crude oil and natural gas prices.

However, SNP's H1 crude production fell to 154.2M barrels, down 11.4% Y/Y, nearly all from domestic operations, which accounts for more than 80% of its crude output; SNP forecasts total H2 production will slip to 147M barrels.

China’s struggling oil sector is entering a long-term decline of its domestic production, a development that has significant global implications including the potential for higher crude oil prices over time as China steps up imports to meet rising demand at home, WSJ reports.

Oil production in China is believed that have peaked last year at ~4.3M bbl/day, as output fell 5% in H1 2016 and 8% in July to 3.95M bbl/day, its lowest daily average in nearly five years; the country’s three biggest oil fields likely experienced production declines of 7%-9% during H1.

It means that the assets that long served as the cornerstone for revenue for China's energy giants PetroChina (NYSE:PTR), Sinopec (NYSE:SNP) and Cnooc (NYSE:CEO) are drying up, and if the companies want to be more profitable - as outside investors and China’s government are pressuring them to do - they will need to diversify their revenue sources and expand their global presence.

Cnooc’s (CEO+1.2%) oil reserves are fast depleting, as the Chinese oil producer maintains its production targets while cutting capex, WSJ's Heard On The Street says.

Cnooc's most lucrative oil barrels are in China - where the reserve life of developed oil reserves, or ratio of proven reserves to production, has fallen below three years - and its overall reserve life is at its lowest in years and one of the lowest among global peers at 8.4 years.

Depreciation, depletion and amortization - which is essentially related to how much it spends on development and new projects - now accounts for 62% of Cnooc's otherwise declining all-in costs, indicating that the company is cutting costs but possibly not in the right places, according to the analysis.

There's no letup likely for China's oil companies after PetroChina (PTR-1.2%) and Cnooc (CEO-2.3%) reported weak earnings and saying they see little room for optimism for the rest of the year.

PTR says its H1 net profit plummeted 98% Y/Y to 531M yuan ($80M) - its smallest half-year profit since it was publicly listed in 2000 - on 739B yuan in revenue, 15% lower than the same period of 2015,and warns that the "global oil price is likely to keep fluctuating at a low level."

CEO posted a 7.7B yuan net loss for H1, in part because of a large impairment charge on the value of its assets in Canada and elsewhere, vs. a 14.7B yuan net profit in the year-ago period, as revenue fell 25% to 66.8B yuan; H1 capital spending totaled 22B yuan, or about a third of the full-year's budgeted amount.

The first-ever shipment of liquefied natural gas from the U.S. to China reportedly arrived this week through the recently expanded Panama Canal.

Dow Jones reports tha the shipment was chartered by Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B), and the cargo was shipped from Cheniere Energy's (NYSEMKT:LNG) Sabine Pass export facility in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to the Yantian Port in southern China and purchased by Cnooc (NYSE:CEO) as part of a long-term contract.

The Panama Canal's new locks, which opened in June and can accommodate larger ships, can cut the travel time from the U.S. to north Asia for ships that could not fit in the old locks by about one third - to 20 days - and lower transportation costs by $0.30-$1/MMBtu, according to research consultancy Energy Aspects.